Introduction

On June 12, 1881, an expedition bound for the North Pole, commanded by naval officer George De Long, abandoned their ship that had been stuck fast in the Polar ice for nearly two years. When the USS Jeanette sank the next day, the men of the expedition were left to make a long trek southward across the icecap in an effort to rescue themselves.

After eight days of difficult progress, De Long measured their advancement, and the results were alarming. De Long was certain his sextant was faulty or his reading was incorrect. But the result showed the expedition was at the northernmost point of the entire journey, north even of the latitude where the Jeanette sunk.

Despite a steady march southward, the expedition failed to progress, because the icepack they were trekking across was drifting north faster than De Long’s men were moving south*.

In this 15th year of the Marketing Performance Management (MPM) Benchmark study*, the story of the Jeanette Polar expedition serves as an appropriate metaphor. for this year’s study.

Although what seems like progress, the results suggest that the ground shifted under the feet of many of the top performing marketers where MPM is concerned. This 2016 MPM Benchmark study conveys how some progress over the past year was real, and some illusory. Measurement without also validating that the metrics are right creates the appearance of progress without really producing results. Marketing organizations that want to earn or keep their seat at the corporate leadership table must focus on both sides of the analytics coin: data and metrics.

This joint Marketing Performance Management Benchmark study conducted by VisionEdge Marketing and Demand Metric, compares and contrasts best- in-class marketing organizations with those in the middle of the pack and the laggards. The findings are based on a survey administered online from January 27 – February 29, 2016. During this period, 438 responses were collected, 366 of which were complete enough and qualified for inclusion in the analysis.

The purpose of this ongoing benchmarking study is to explore how marketing organizations can achieve best-in-class performance measurement and management, become recognized as a Center of Excellence and experience the corresponding benefits. This report details the results and insights from the analysis of the 2016 MPM survey data. Only statistically valid data and relationships between study variables were included in this report. For more detail about the survey and its participants, please refer to Appendix A.